Regulatory myopia and public health: ‘tough’ tobacco control?

Abstract

The regulation of products which affect public health has become an increasingly salient issue and it has often been argued that ‘regulatory capture’, where regulators are too ‘close’ to the industry they are regulating leads to ineffective regulation. The present extended review seeks to explore this topic with respect to the tobacco industry. It analyses a memoir by David Kessler the Commissioner of the (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 1990 to 1997, a period in which he sought to put the US tobacco industry under FDA regulation. The article considers the case mounted by the FDA and shows why it failed. Nevertheless Kessler's work can be seen as a model for public health regulators in seeking to subject a ‘deadly’ industry to effective regulation. However, another important dimension of such regulation is the intellectual framework used and Kessler's approach reflects limitations in contemporary tobacco regulation.

Keywords:

• International trade in tobacco products
• regulation
• regulatory capture
• Thai tobacco dispute
• tobacco control
• US Food and Drug Administration